A Trip to Italia
by Juliana Brandagamba
Summary: Co-written with andbreathe. Quite a bonkers story in which the Atlantis gang decide to take a holiday (eventually). Prepare for jokes, sarcasm and things taken far too literally. Warning: ventures quite far into surreality.
1. Once upon a time in Atlantis

The day began normally: bright and sunny with just a hint of a breeze, and with Hercules's drunken snores coming from his bedroom. Half-asleep, Jason was absent-mindedly rating each of the snores on a scale of one to ten. Pythagoras, sitting next to him, gave each score a precise decimal to three significant figures. Then he fell asleep and dreamt about triangles.

Suddenly, the whole household (even Hercules) was awoken by a sharp rap on the door.

Jason jumped up and made to answer it but was stopped by Pythagoras.

'Of course!' cried Pythagoras. 'The square of the hypotenuse is the sum of the square of the other two sides!'

Jason looked at him thoughtfully. 'Haven't you said that before?'

Pythagoras shook his head very definitely. 'Is anyone going to answer the door?'

'That rhymes,' slurred Hercules, looking as delighted as a baby as he stumbled through to the main room.

Jason took one step forwards but then remembered how little he was wearing.

'Hello?' called a voice from outside. 'Is anyone in?'

Hercules frantically waved his arms, mouthing _No!_

Pythagoras shoved Hercules into one room and Jason into the other, and then went to the door. Opening it, he started to greet the person who was there, only to be interrupted by the sound of Hercules pounding on the wall. He tried to ignore this and turned to the doorway, to find a familiar figure standing there.

He was unable to conceal his surprise. 'Come in,' he said. When the door was closed, he said, 'Arcos! Why are you back here?'

'To give you some brotherly support,' Arcos replied. 'Now, I could do with a pint.'

'A pint?' Pythagoras said slowly. 'A pint of what?'

'Don't you have any good ale? Wine?'

'Come off it, Arcos.' Pythagoras looked embarrassed. 'I don't always have water.'

A bang from the other side of the room told them that Hercules had got through the door. 'I've got plenty!' he said drunkenly.

'Yes, inside of you,' Pythagoras said, flustered. 'And it can stay that way.'

'What's this then?' asked Hercules, holding up a bedpost.

'That's a bedpost, Hercules. It belongs to your bed.' Pythagoras pushed Hercules back and closed the door. Then he offered a tray to Arcos. 'Olives?'

Arcos took one and sat down. 'And now my story. You wanted to know why I'm here...'

* * *

><p>Half an hour later, Pythagoras woke up on the floor with olives in his ears. He picked up the plate from under his nose and tried to remember when he had fallen asleep. Arcos had been saying something about a fez competition in Arabia. He had described each round in infinite detail.<p>

'...So then I deliberated over my jar of pickles, decided to save them and took a leisurely stroll towards Atlantis,' Arcos finished. He had a glazed look in his eyes and didn't seem to have noticed that Pythagoras was flat out on the floor, surrounded by dead salad.

Just then Jason peered into the room, still wearing very little. 'Can I come out yet?' he said. Arcos jumped five feet in the air. Jason stared at Pythagoras. 'Why do you have olives up your nose?'

'I think I must have blacked out whilst Arcos was talking,' Pythagoras replied. 'He was telling me how he ended up here. It was a long story.'

'Why _are_ you here?' Jason asked Arcos.

'To tell you the truth, I don't really know,' realised Arcos. 'One night I went to sleep and then when I woke up I had ended up here.'

'That must have been terrible,' said Pythagoras. 'Most people here wish they could wake up somewhere else.'

'Oh, no,' said Arcos. 'I like this place. It has the best bread-stalls in all of Greece.'

'Does it?' asked Pythagoras, astonished. 'Some of Eucalyptus's bread rolls are geometrically impossible. It's really annoying.'

'What geoflamingo?' asked Arcos.

'Oh, no,' groaned Jason. 'Don't let Pythagoras explain geometry. It's dangerous. You could die of boredom.' But it was too late. Pythagoras was in full flow.

'And so the diagonal of the right-angled triangle is called the hypotenuse...'

There was a crash: Arcos had (possibly) died from boredom.

Hercules stuck his head out from behind the door. 'Somebody has stolen my top-secret stash of extra-strong alcohol that was disguised as an olive!'

'What? An olive? But Arcos ate – oh, no!'

Arcos had got up and was belching loudly. He took the bed-post out of Hercules's hand and began hitting himself over the head with it.

'Arcos, no!' Pythagoras tried to intervene, but Arcos just hit him over the head with the post. He fell to the floor, knocked out cold.

Jason frantically tried to stop Hercules from wrestling Arcos to the ground, and Arcos from wrecking the place. The room was chaos. From the outside it sounded as if some kind of terrible murder was happening, interspersed with belches and mathematical equations (Pythagoras had woken up and was trying to keep calm).

Then Jason used his hero-skills to do a backflip. Unsurprisingly, it didn't help. It distracted Arcos, though, who fainted in admiration.

'Why do people keep keeling over?' Jason cried in exasperation.

'Perhaps you should put a top on?' suggested Pythagoras.

'It's refusing to come out of the cupboard,' admitted Jason.

'You could borrow one of mine,' suggested Pythagoras.

'What, the one with triangles on it? Or the one with "Archimedes is cool"?' asked Jason.

'I love Archimedes,' said Arcos from the floor. 'He's my best mate.'

'Oy! I saw him first!' yelled Pythagoras, pummelling his brother. Jason decided to join in, followed by Hercules, who sat on Arcos.

'Well, that's sorted,' sighed Pythagoras, wiping his brow. He peeled Arcos off the floor and put him on the table, where he did a remarkable impression of a tablecloth. Then he swept the dead salad off the floor and onto a plate. 'Breakfast is served!'

'Breakfast?' exclaimed Jason, who had emerged from Pythagoras's room wearing a T-shirt that said "Yes, I'm the triangle guy".

'I got him that one,' chuckled Hercules, hiccupping. 'Pass the beer.'

Pythagoras passed him the salad, as they had a beer shortage.

'Hmm,' Hercules said, nibbling at it. 'Not enough alcohol.'

'Just let it ferment for a bit,' said Jason helpfully.

'Some of it already has done,' said Pythagoras, prodding a tomato suspiciously. The tomato prodded him back.

'So where's breakfast?' asked Jason.

'This is breakfast,' explained Pythagoras. 'Salad on bread. But without the bread. And the salad's gone off. But we still have a good supply of olives,' he added brightly.

'I don't like olives,' said Jason, a little moodily.

'I love olives!' said Hercules. 'They're my best mate!'

Pythagoras stuffed Hercules's mouth with olives, which shut him up. 'So!' he said cheerily to Jason, 'what are we going to do today?'

'Well, I was thinking heroic deeds this morning, Ariadne's place for lunch and a bit of snogging, and then a topless photoshoot – I mean more heroic deeds in the afternoon,' said Jason. 'Then a bit of a snooze before the main evening snog.' *

'Um,' said Pythagoras awkwardly. 'I meant, what are you doing today that is appropriate to tell me? You didn't have to go into detail.'

Jason reconsidered. 'Heroic deeds. Whilst topless. Nothing unusual.'

'I can't argue with that,' said Pythagoras. 'Except the topless bit. I think we've learned that that's unwise.'

'Why is it?' asked Jason. 'I'll only get my tops dirty if I wear them.'

'Clothes are made to be worn!' said Hercules, managing to be philosophical and very drunk at the same time.

'Not if we don't have the time or clean water to wash them,' said Jason.

'He's got a point,' Pythagoras had to concede.

'This has got a point!' said Hercules delightedly, holding up Jason's sword.

'Put that down!' yelled Pythagoras, his eyes wide in terror. Hercules dropped it on his foot.

Jason rushed forwards with his super-fast reflexes and grabbed the hilt.

'And Jason saves the day again, as usual,' he said in the voice of a sports commentator.

'Yes, and for that I'm very grateful,' said Pythagoras, 'but you really need to work on your modesty.'

'But I'm wearing a top,' said Jason. 'And trousers.'

Pythagoras sighed. 'I need a holiday.'

Just then there was a knock at the door. 'Hello!' said a salesman, bounding in. 'Pi and Omega cruise to Italia, anyone? Only five geese and a duck for a trip.'

'Hercules, do we have five geese and a duck?' Pythagoras asked.

'We have a cheese,' said Hercules. 'And a bedpost.'

Pythagoras turned back to the salesman. 'Cheese and a bedpost. Will that do?'

'Er, quite possibly,' said the salesman, taken aback. Nobody had ever bought anything from him before.

'Also 56...57 olives,' chipped in Jason. 'One previous eater,' he added: Hercules had spat them out a while ago.

'Pre-loved. Okay,' said the salesman. 'I'll take it.'

'We're going to Italia!' said Hercules excitedly. 'They have great wine there!'

'We're going to Italia!' said Pythagoras. 'They have great intellects there!'

'We're going to Italia!' said Jason. 'I wonder if they sell lack-of-tops there?'

* * *

><p>*Authors' note: this is a <em>Red Dwarf<em> reference. The actual quote is about slobbing, not snogging.


	2. We're going to Italia!

The next day they were on board a ship bound for Italia. The wind was in the sails, in Jason's hair, and in Hercules's trousers.

'Well, this is a turn-up for the scrolls, isn't it?' Pythagoras remarked.

'It's brilliant,' sighed Jason, leaning over the side, looking at the view and breathing in the salty air. Then the ship set off and he nearly fell overboard. He staggered across the deck and crashed into Hercules, who staggered backwards and through the open trapdoor into the hold. He fell on top of a cow, who was seasick all over him.

'Help,' said Hercules weakly.

'The hills are alive with the sound of moo-sick,' sang someone. It was Pythagoras, who was looking in through the trapdoor.

'Doe, a deer, a female deer,' sang Jason, who wasn't really paying attention.

'Female?' said Hercules. 'Who's female?'

'Never mind,' said Jason.

'Me,' said a cow unexpectedly.

'Yes, I know,' said Hercules. 'Wait, what?'

The cow just fluttered her eyelashes at him.

'Erm, why is there a talking cow?' asked Jason. 'Is that normal?'

'Will you go out with me?' asked the cow.

'That definitely isn't,' said Hercules, who didn't know how to react.

'But cows don't have advanced vocal cords, or powerful brains, so logically they can't speak,' said Pythagoras.

'This is mytho-logic, remember,' said the cow. 'Anything can happen.'

'And frequently does,' muttered Jason.

'You mean – it's possible the hypotenuse is the square root of the sum of the squares of the other two sides?' Pythagoras said excitedly.

'Did that make any sense to you?' asked Hercules.

'No,' said the cow.

'See?' said Hercules.

'Yeah, that's what we're floating on at the moment,' said the cow. 'But you haven't answered my question, Hercules. Will you go out with me? There are some excellent tabernas in Italia.'

'No, of course not,' said Hercules. 'I have only one true love...' He sighed dreamily.

'Well, she's not here,' said the cow. 'So what do you think?'

'What do you think I'd look like taking a cow on a date?' screamed Hercules. 'And how would you know that my one true love isn't here?'

'Well, unless you fancy Pythagoras or Jason...' said the cow. 'Or one of the other cows...'

'You mean we're the only ones on this ship?' yelled Pythagoras.

'Apart from the skipper, and nobody could fancy him,' said the cow. 'He's all round and pink with a little curly tail like a pig's.'

'You're homophobic,' said Jason.

'No, pigophobic,' said the cow. 'I think the skipper's a pig.'

Suddenly the skipper came skipping over. He oinked a bit and snorted, before sniffing the floor and rolling around a bit.

'Argh!' cried Pythagoras. 'Nobody's controlling the ship!'

Jason rushed heroically to the tiller and expertly steered it. 'I feel like those... what do you call them, those guys on that ship... the Astronauts, was it?'

'I think so,' said Hercules. 'Led by Neil Diamond or someone.'

'No, he sang I'm a Believer. You're thinking of Neil Armstrong,' said Pythagoras, forgetting that he was in the ancient world and wasn't supposed to know a jot about pop music. Or astronauts.

Meanwhile, the boat was whizzing along now, whipping across the waves and occasionally leaping into the air.

'Sorry, my fault,' said Jason. 'I was trying to make the boat do a super-cool flip thing like I do.'

'Please don't do it again,' pleaded Pythagoras. 'Otherwise those cows will drown in their own vomit. It will not be pleasant.'

'Especially not for me!' shouted Hercules from inside the hold. 'It's already getting a bit strange down here. Cows vomiting left, right and centre – all of them except the talking one. She keeps trying to kiss me.'

'Good job she's not vomiting then,' said Pythagoras reasonably. 'Sorry,' he said a moment afterwards.

Hercules eventually managed to evade the cows and come up onto the deck. He smelled so terribly that a seagull fell off the side and died.

'Nooo!' said Jason, who had become very fond of the gull. 'Gareth!'

But Gareth had gone, left far behind as the ship sped on towards Italia. For a long while afterwards Pythagoras and Hercules could get no sense out of the sobbing wreck that was Jason, until Hercules suggested they should tell him that Ariadne was watching.

It worked. Jason sprang up, flexed his muscles and ran a hand through his hair, before realising that Hercules had lied.

'You can put your muscles away now,' said Pythagoras.

'No I can't,' said Jason. 'I left my top at home. And yours.'

'You are not going to Italia topless!' cried Pythagoras.

'Why not?' Jason whined.

'They have a much greater sense of decency there,' replied Pythagoras. 'They'll think you're a slave.'

'And he doesn't mean a slave to fashion,' pointed out Hercules, 'seeing as your fashion sense only covers trousers.'

'And your trousers barely cover anything,' added Pythagoras.

Jason looked at his trousers self-consciously. There wasn't much to see, as they were unnecessarily tight and only came down to his knees. 'They shrank in the wash,' he mumbled.

'What do you mean?' Hercules exclaimed. 'Our clothes never get washed.'

'Oh,' said Jason. 'Oh, all right, so they last fitted me when I was twelve...'

'What, months?' asked Hercules.

'Can't remember back that far,' said Jason. 'When I try to, all I can see is dark blue and bubbles. Oh, and the occasional squid.'

'Squid?' said Hercules, bewildered.

'Wait... you're not... you're not a merman, are you?' asked Pythagoras.

'No, don't be silly. Mermen don't exist,' Jason laughed. Then his smile drooped. 'They don't exist, do they? Please tell me mermen don't exist...'

'They don't exist,' said Pythagoras. 'Do they? No – wait – really – please tell me mermen don't exist...'

'Nope, they don't exist. Absolutely sure. 100% sure. Well, 97... 10 percent sure they don't exist,' said Hercules.

'What's percent?' asked Pythagoras. 'It sounds fun.'

'It's a system to calculate proportion,' said Jason, unaware that there was a merman creeping up behind him. 'It's like a fraction but out of 100,' he continued, failing to notice Pythagoras's open mouth and Hercules's frenzied pointing.

Then the merman sprang in between them and proclaimed, 'I am Merman the Tench-man!'*

Jason yelled and span round. Then he gasped, 'Dad?!'

A heart-stopping moment passed. Then: 'Actually, I don't know why I said that,' Jason admitted. 'I haven't the foggiest who my dad is.'

'Pardon?' said the merman.

'I... I mean... sorry,' said Jason. 'You, erm, reminded me of someone.'

'Really?' said Merman sceptically, waving his tail and tossing back his long green hair. A mermaid came up behind him and started stroking his locks.

'Hi, Tench-man,' she said.

'Hi, Blobfish,' said Merman. When the others stared, he said, 'Yes, we're all named after fish. Problem?'

'Um...' said Jason.

'But you're anatomically impossible!' Pythagoras burst out. 'If you're half-man and half-fish, then your parents... no, I don't even want to think about that...'

'My parents are the noble Haddock and Flatfish, King and Queen of the Seven Seas,' said Blobfish haughtily.

'You're a Princess!' said Pythagoras, bowing.

'You're a fish!' said Hercules, who hadn't yet got over it.

'I am a princess, ignorant human,' said Blobfish. 'Now kindly remove your ugliness from my sight.'

'You can talk,' said Hercules, then realised whom he had just insulted.

Jason saved the day, yet again, by yanking the tiller so that Blobfish and Tench-man unceremoniously slid off the boat with a squelch. Then he turned the sail so that they sped off, churning up Blobfish and Tench-man in a burst of spray.

'Well, that was very strange,' remarked Pythagoras when they were a safe distance away.

'Yes,' agreed Jason. 'Wait – look – is that Italia on the horizon?'

'I wouldn't bet on it,' Hercules said gloomily. 'Nothing good ever seems to happen to us.' Pause. 'Oh, Medusa!' he wailed.

'Waaaa,' wailed a distant Siren in reply.

'If I'm not mistaken, that was a Siren,' said Pythagoras, interested. 'Aargh! It's a Siren! Block your ears!'

He and Jason stuffed their fingers in their ears. Hercules meanwhile was staring out to sea, captivated.

'Oh dear...' said Jason.

'Oh no...' said Pythagoras.

'Oh my giddy pants,' said Hercules, grinning like a maniac.

Jason hurriedly stuffed a cow in Hercules's ears. However, he had to take his fingers out of his own ears to do so. 'Ooh...' he sighed dreamily, ambling to the back of the boat.

'Jason!' Pythagoras yelled, stuffing a cow in each of Jason's ears. His own ears were thus unblocked, and he stared at the distant rock upon which the Siren was perched.

He stared. He stared some more.

'What on earth do you see in her?' he asked at last.

'WHAT?' said Hercules. 'SORRY! I CAN'T HEAR YOU,' he explained, pointing to his ears.

Pythagoras shrugged, and steered the ship out of earshot of the Siren.

'It wasn't Italia then,' he said after a while.

'WHAT?' said Hercules.

Pythagoras sighed and peeled the cow away from Hercules's ears.

'What were you saying?' said Hercules.

'It wasn't Italia,' said Pythagoras. 'That's Italia, there.'

Hercules looked. 'By the gods, it is!' he exclaimed joyously. 'Vinum magnificum, here I come!'

* * *

><p>* Authors' note: this is a pun on the pantomime villain Herman the Henchman. Sorry, couldn't resist.<p> 


	3. Hercules finds the taberna

Pythagoras expertly docked at a port. 'This is it,' he said.

'Hang on, what do we do with all the cows?' Jason asked.

'They're not our cows,' Pythagoras replied. 'I expect that the captain will know what to do with them...' He looked doubtfully at the pig.

'The captain's a pig!' said Hercules.

'That's a bit strong,' said Pythagoras.

'I say the ship, the cows and the pig are our property!' Hercules continued.

'Hercules, what do we want with those cows and that pig?' Pythagoras cried.

'We're on a holiday, remember, not a farm,' Jason added.

'We eat them,' Hercules said triumphantly.

'But the food here in Italia is excellent,' said Pythagoras. 'We don't need them.'

But Hercules wasn't listening: he had spotted a tabernas. Gleefully he clambered out of the boat.

'Oh, no!' said Jason. 'Hercules, come back!'

But it was too late. Hercules had made himself at home already.

Desperately Jason leapt out of the boat and landed heroically on his face. A few people stared but decided to keep away. Jason looked up at them, his mouth full of sand and a starfish. 'Phte,' he spluttered.

'Yuck,' said the starfish. 'Human-spit.'

'Aargh!' he exclaimed. 'Mytho-logic, remember,' he muttered to himself a moment later. 'Stay calm, Big J.'

'Big J?' asked Pythagoras, bewildered. 'Anyway, hadn't we better go after Big H – I mean Hercules?'

'All right, Big P,' Jason agreed. 'What're you looking at?' he snapped at the small crowd that had gathered on the beach.

Then he remembered that he wasn't wearing a top. 'Heh, heh,' he said, flexing his muscles.

Unfortunately the crowd was composed of pensioners waiting to go on a cruise. They ignored him and made their way onto the ship; the pig went to the tiller and began to steer the ship away.

'Huh,' muttered Jason.

'Jason,' Pythagoras said sternly. 'There'll be no more topless muscle-flexing whilst we're in Italia.'

'Well, find me a top-shop then,' Jason said.

Pythagoras sighed. 'Very well, but I'm warning you, I've only got one denarius.'

Jason raised his eyebrows. 'Then how are we going to pay for Hercules's drinks?' he cried, racing towards the taberna.

'How are we going to pay for anything?' Pythagoras said sadly, looking at his single denarius.

'How we always pay for things,' said Jason. 'Wit, wiliness and a little bit of burglary.'

They ran off towards the taberna. Inside they saw a host of drunken men, with Hercules in the middle regaling the others with slurred and nonsensical stories about Atlantis.

'I was a beetle in my youth...' he was saying. 'I won all of the prizesh and King Minosh kished me on the lipsh...'

'Hercules!' yelled Pythagoras and Jason, battling their way through the crowd. The crowd battled them back and it wasn't long before a pub brawl blew up.

Jason began exercising his brilliant fighting skills. Hercules helped, bashing people over the head with his tankard. Pythagoras hid under a table and did sums to distract himself.

After a while Pythagoras began to hear more whispered sums to the left of him. He turned round. Another man was huddled under the next table, and he looked up to see Pythagoras staring at him.

'Hello,' said Pythagoras.

'_Salve_,' said the man in Latin. '_Graecus es_?' *

'Er... oui,' said Pythagoras. 'Non – si. Non – er – ja?'

'I know, it's a real problem,' said the man. 'Us Latin-speakers not having a word for "yes".' **

'Who are you, anyway?' asked Pythagoras. 'Are you a mathematician, like me?'

'You're a mathematician?' the man said excitedly. 'I love maths! Do you know Archimedes? He's great, isn't he?'

'Oy! I saw him first!' said Pythagoras, going to pummel him but succeeding only in whacking the table leg.

The man held his hands up. 'Okay, calm down,' he said. 'Cool it. Chill. And other things that begin with "c".'

'Cucumber?' said Pythagoras, who wasn't really listening.

'Yeah,' the man agreed. 'Copious amounts of cucumber. Perfect/'

'I love cucumber,' slurred Hercules, who had just been wrestled to the floor near Pythagoras's table. He was yanked up again immediately, but a couple of seconds later he was thrown to the floor again. 'It's my best mate,' he exclaimed.

'That's my friend Hercules,' said Pythagoras in a slightly embarrassed fashion.

'Hi, Hercules!' said the man cheerfully. 'Hercules...' he mused. 'That's a good name. It sounds like a hero's name. A great, strong hero... who wrestled snakes in his cradle...'

'You must be thinking of a different Hercules,' Pythagoras told him. 'This one's fat and lazy and not much of a hero at all.'

But the man had gone off into a daydream. 'I'll write a book about the Great Hercules... where he does many heroic deeds. Ten heroic deeds. No, twelve...'

'Why not eleven? That's the average,' said Pythagoras. 'More than this Hercules has actually done though,' he added.

'I love averages,' said the man excitedly. 'You get a choice – mean, mode, median... Anyway,' he said, snapping out of his reverie. 'Hadn't you better help your friend?'

'Erm, how?' asked Pythagoras.

The man thought for a moment. 'Blind them with science!' he suggested.

'That's a great idea,' said Pythagoras. 'I'll explain my latest theory – it's like a magic spell or something. Everyone who hears it falls asleep!'

So he stood up and began spouting jargon. Within moments the room was filled with the sound of drunken snoring.

The man came out from underneath his table. 'Has it stopped yet?'

'I think so,' said Pythagoras, emerging and trying to find Hercules and Jason. He spotted a youth with curly black hair, who was lying face down on a table.

'Jason?' he asked tentatively, before realising that this young man wasn't topless.

'Hello!' said someone behind me. 'Did you call me?'

'Jason! You're not drunk!' said Pythagoras, relieved.

'All they had was lager,' Jason sighed. 'I hate lager.'

'Lager?' asked Pythagoras, perplexed. 'So where is the wine for which Italia is so famous?'

'Umm...' said Jason. 'I think this is a very grotty part of Italia.'

'We should probably go somewhere else,' remarked Pythagoras, who had found Hercules and was prodding him.

'Yep,' said Jason. 'Who's that?' He pointed to the man Pythagoras had met earlier.

'I've no clue,' said Pythagoras. 'Who are you anyway?'

'The name's Publius Ovidius Naso,' said the man. 'But you can call me Ovid.'

'Nice to meet you, Ovid,' said Jason.

'Nice to have met you already,' said Pythagoras.

'Wherrrr...' said Hercules from the floor.

'Hercules!' exclaimed Pythagoras, bringing his friend a jug of water and forcing him to drink it.

'Glob glob glob,' said Hercules. His eyes crossed and his tongue waggled, but at last he regained a slight bit of sobriety. 'Medusa...' he mumbled.

'Never mind Medusa; we're going to find a better bit of Italia,' Pythagoras told him.

'Can I come with you?' asked Ovid excitedly. 'I'm looking for some good stories and you people look interesting.'

'I suppose we do a bit,' admitted Jason, looking round at the strange little group.

'Perhaps you could introduce yourselves,' Ovid continued.

'Jason,' said Jason.

'Pythagoras,' said Pythagoras.

'Medusa,' said Hercules.

'No way!' cried Ovid. 'You're Pythagoras? I love that theorem!'

'Oh, good,' said Pythagoras. 'Wait, what theorem?'

'You know – a2 + b2 = h2,' Ovid replied.

'But I've only just come up with that one,' protested Pythagoras.

'Ah,' said Ovid. 'I'll let you into a secret: I'm from the future. I came here to do some research for my _Metamorphoses_ series.'

'You're a writer?' asked Pythagoras.

'From the future?' added Jason.

'Are you Medusa?' asked Hercules.

'No. I thought you said that_ you_ were,' said Ovid, confused. 'Though actually, Pythagoras said your name was Hercules. You Greeks are strange folk.'

'Medusa...' said Hercules. 'She's my best mate.'

'Who is this Medusa?' asked Ovid. 'Could she be a character for my story?'

'She's his girlfriend,' said Pythagoras, 'only she has snakes for hair and whenever she looks at people they turn to stone.'

'Excellent!' said Ovid, clapping his hands together. 'Exactly what I needed. The _Metamorphoses_ are about people and things turning into other people and things.'

'_Metamorphoses_?' inquired Pythagoras.

'I'm writing a poem,' said Ovid excitedly. 'It includes any story I can find about things turning into other things. I've done Cadmus and the Dragon's Teeth – not a great guy, that Cadmus, but an interesting story...'

'Erm... lovely,' said Pythagoras.

'And once I've finished I'm going to find Atalanta and...'

He was interrupted by a shout from Jason. He had been biffed in the eye by a drunken pub-goer. They had all woken up and were heading towards the quartet.

However, they didn't look quite... human. They were groaning and stumbling towards the crew with their arms held out in front of them. One of them was laughing uncontrollably.

'Er, run?' suggested Pythagoras.

Jason looked at them, flexed his muscles a bit and considered backflipping over them. Then he decided it probably wouldn't help. 'Run,' he agreed.

'Rum,' said Hercules drunkenly. 'I love rum.'

Jason just grabbed him and pulled him from the taberna. Pythagoras was about to join them when he saw that Ovid was sitting at a table, furiously scribbling. He grabbed the poet; Ovid wriggled free and finished off a line of verse before following the others.

Jason did a quiet little backflip because he's been wanting to do one all day but there hadn't been chance. The drunkards all stopped being zombified to watch in admiration.

'Jason!' Pythagoras hissed.

'I couldn't hold it in any longer,' Jason protested.

'Buys us time though,' said Ovid, who had managed to slip out between the stupefied zombies.

Jason did another backflip for luck, then followed Hercules.

* * *

><p>* This is Latin for "Hello. Are you Greek?"<p>

** This is true. They had to get round it by repeating the question, or saying "Ita vero" (Indeed so) or "Maxime" (greatly) or something. Latin also has no word for "no".


	4. Things get a bit surreal

They went as far away from the taberna as possible – well, not quite as far away as possible, because that was probably the other side of the earth, or at least Britannia. Wherever it was, it had horses and looked a blurry sort of yellow (at least to the drunken Hercules).

'Medusa,' he mumbled, lumbering towards a horse.

'That's a horse, Hercules,' said Pythagoras.

But Hercules didn't hear: he was busy snogging it.

'Eurgh,' said Jason, disgusted. 'He's old enough to be its grandfather.'

The horse didn't seem to mind though; indeed, when Hercules was finished, it ran its huge slobbery tongue all over his face.

'Mmm,' said Hercules.

'Anyway,' said Pythagoras, blushing slightly. 'What shall we do now?'

'Let's go to the amphitheatre!' said Jason brightly.

They all looked at him.

'Well, there's nothing much else to do in Italia, is there?' asked Jason.

'What about the shrines? And the fountains? And the orators?' protested Ovid.

'Topless gladiators will do just fine,' said Jason.*

They all looked at him strangely.

'I mean... whatever you say. Shrines. Potatoes. I mean orators. Whatever,' said Jason, looking worryingly disappointed.

Pythagoras shared a concerned look with Ovid. 'And he's got a girlfriend as well,' he whispered.

'Bizarre,' said Ovid. 'Though not half as bizarre as my _Amores_,'** he admitted rather sheepishly. 'I did some fairly strange fieldwork for those poems, I can tell you.'

'As in... ploughing?' asked Jason, who wasn't really listening.

'Err... no,' said Ovid. 'As in... no, I probably shouldn't tell you about my research.'

'No,' said Pythagoras, patting Ovid on the back. 'No, perhaps you shouldn't. Anyway, let's go to the amphitheatre, shall we?'

'Good idea,' said Jason, sighing. 'Wish I'd thought of it myself.'

They all set off; then, when Jason thought he was out of sight of the others, he did a victorious backflip. The horse fainted in admiration, and Hercules was left snogging thin air.

'Mmm,' he murmured. '20% oxygen. My favourite.'

Jason stared at him. 'That was quite some drink he had!'

'It was a very, _very_ grotty part of Italia,' Pythagoras told him.

Jason jumped. 'I thought you'd gone to the amphitheatre!' he said.

'We weren't that far ahead of you,' said Pythagoras.

'Fair enough,' said Jason.

They watched Hercules continue his intimate kiss with the air for a bit. The sun was just beginning to sink below the horizon. It was all very romantic, or would have been if there had been a girl involved.

'Medusa,' mumbled Hercules.

Pythagoras tried to ignore him. 'Where's the nearest amphitheatre, anyway?'

'Ummm...' said Ovid. 'That way?' He pointed to the setting Sun.

So they followed the sun for a bit and almost fell off a cliff.

'Not that way,' said Ovid, and went in the other direction. Squinting because of the sun, he pointed northwards. 'That's Rome, I do believe,' he said excitedly. Then he paused. 'How on Tellure*** did we get to Rome?'

'I would calculate that there is a strong probability, going by the results of recent events, that there is a chance that I have no idea that I'm talking about,' said Pythagoras. Everyone looked confused, so he gave up.

'Ad Romae!'**** cried Ovid.

'Ad Romae!' Pythagoras and Jason cried.

'Hic,' said Hercules.

'Haec, Hoc,' said Jason absent-mindedly. *****

'Hunc, Hanc, Hoc,' said Ovid in delight. 'Huius, huius, huius...'

'Hic, hic, hic,' hiccupped Hercules.

'No, huic, huic, huic,' Ovid corrected him.

'Houmous, houmous, houmous,' Hercules mumbled.

'No, hoc, hac, hoc,' Ovid said.

'Ho, ho, ho,' mumbled Hercules, sounding remarkably like Father Christmas. Not that anyone would have made this connexion in ancient times, even Jason, who seemed to have forgotten all his knowledge about the future.

* * *

><p>* Not quite sure what this is supposed to suggest...<p>

** Ovid's _Amores_ is a collection of love poetry. The poems are rather tongue-in-cheek and get a bit saucy as Ovid writes about the string of affairs he has had with random girls – though when his (current) girlfriend has an affair behind his back he is not pleased about it.

*** Latin for "on Earth".

**** Latin for "to Rome".

***** Anyone who's done Latin at school will most likely understand this reference to reciting pronoun tables. "Hic" is the pronoun meaning "this" in Latin, and this conversation is a parody on its declension.


End file.
